Five Friday Facts #57

News
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Singapore turns to social media for travel & food products
Nielsen recently released their annual global social media report, which showed that social media is playing a bigger role in influencing the purchasing decisions of Singaporeans when it comes to travel and food. 68% of Singaporeans turned to social media when choosing a restaurant. More than two-thirds also read online reviews such as blogs when it came to food and beverage products. Singaporeans are known for being foodies and given that the nation is a food paradise, this trend comes as no surprise. Also, 67% said they would choose travel products based on recommendations that are shared online. At least 30% of Singaporeans post comments online about brands every week. Most impressive is how Singapore has the highest penetration of social media users via mobile phones in the world, with 70% of Singaporean social media users logging on to the platforms via their mobile phones – 23% higher than the global average of 47%.  While the top three categories conversed about in Singapore are F&B, travel and entertainment sectors, in Southeast Asia as a whole, entertainment, electronics and clothing were the top three categories that were most influenced by social media.

Most Indians are ignorant about privacy on social media
A study conducted by IIT-Delhi revealed that 75% of the participants had never read the privacy policy on any website that they interacted with. 40% of the participants said they will not save or share personal information via emails. The survey observed that most people were concerned about their financial privacy but not so much their social media privacy. More than 70% have not read the privacy policy of a page before sharing their personal information such as on social media platforms. The survey studied the behaviour of 10,427 people to analyse the security and privacy aspects of complex networked systems like Facebook and Twitter. The study clearly pointed to the fact that people were not informed of privacy laws and much education is needed in this area.

Line gains popularity in Thailand
Mobile messaging apps such as WeChat, KaKao Talk and now Line are posing a real threat to Facebook in Asia.  Line, a Japanese Whatsapp rival just announced that it has surpassed 10 million downloads in Thailand. The app has more than 82 million downloads worldwide. Thailand is Facebook’s 17th largest market with 17.9 million users, and with a bulk of the Thai population becoming heavy users of mobile messaging apps, there is a real challenge for Facebook to grow any further in similar markets.This is why Facebook needs to get more competitive in the messaging space. Despite being the market leader in social media in Asia, Facebook is bound to lose out to these emerging players if it does not continue to seek opportunities to grow in the mobile realm.

“Too many updates” poses the biggest social danger for brands
A study by SocialVibe has found that consumers ‘unfollow’ brand pages on social media platforms simply because there are too many updates from the page. 1 in 3 American social media users ended their social connection with a brand due to this reason. A key finding was that 22% of respondents said the brand’s content and values were different from their original perception. This is increasingly becoming a concern for brands as well – to ensure that the content they post reflects accurately what the brand truly stands for.

Convergence of TV and social networking in Canada
Canadian TV viewers are becoming mini ambassadors of their favourite TV shows. According to a Q2 survey from Solutions Research, 3 out of 10 internet users considered themselves a “social TV viewer”.  Contrary to popular belief that Twitter is more famous as a go-to platform whilst watching TV, people posted more comments on Facebook. In Canada, Facebook has a 61% reach whilst Twitter only has 25% reach. However, 15% said that they watched a TV show after being prompted by a tweet. This is a trend that the industry is watching to see grow in 2013 as TV shows get increasingly integrated with social media platforms, especially hashtag interactions, in most scenarios.